The body has a number of natural stomas or openings, such as the anus, for passing waste product from within the body. Artificial stomas occasionally need to be provided to allow evacuation of waste products from within the body. One such stoma is the colostomy that is formed by bringing the conduit of the bowel to the body surface. In this case, faecal matter is normally made to pass through an orifice in the abdominal wall and into an adherent collection bag.
Artificial stomas are formed by surgical intervention and are typically required as a result of disease, congenital anomaly or injury. Of these, disease leads to the greatest number of operative procedures, with the main diseases being colonic cancer, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and other inflammatory bowel diseases. Stoma care, therefore, is relevant to a significant percentage of the population.
As mentioned above, traditional methods of collecting faecal matter involves the adherence of a collection bag to the external surface of the abdomen. Such a method utilises an adhesive wafer or plate having an inlet opening for accommodating the stoma. The bag and wafer may form a disposable one-piece unit or alternatively a two-piece unit wherein the wafer remains adhered to the abdominal wall for several days and only the receiving bag is replaced. The service life of the wafer and the bag are to an extent dependent upon the amount of waste material but generally the adhesive wafer must be removed once it has become sufficiently deteriorated that faecal waste matter can come into contact with the skin surrounding the stoma. As such, wafers and bags typically have a service life of no greater than about two days.
Several problems are associated with the traditional wafer and bag devices such as skin irritations and infections due to faecal contamination and adverse reactions to the wafer adhesive. Indeed it is thought that up to 40% of stoma patients are affected by skin problems, this figure increasing to up to 80% in patients who have an ileostomy. Furthermore, the necessity to change the wafer and bag frequently seriously affects a patient's quality of life.
With the traditional methods, it has also been found that a certain amount of more fluid waste material has a tendency to collect at the entrance to the bag and thus removal of the bag may cause leakage of this material.
Moreover, the need to use the traditional wafer and collection bag devices imposes several problems for the ostomate, including restrictions to lifestyle (eg. poor utility, inconvenience, and need for dietary changes), psychological issues (eg. sexuality and poor self esteem) and an increased risk of herniation.
The introduction of irrigating liquid into the large intestine through the stoma can be used to stimulate faecal evacuation. One example of a device for introducing irrigating fluid that relies upon a gravity feed of the fluid into the intestine is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,804,373. While describing a means of introducing an irrigating fluid, the device does not address many of the problems of the traditional wafer and bag systems.
A means of collecting waste material from the bowel of a patient is described in International Application No. PCT/AU97/00145. This application describes the use of a suction pump to aid evacuation of waste material from the bowel in place of the traditional adhesive bag method.
The present invention aims to provide a still further means of evacuating waste material which overcomes the problems associated with the traditional bag and wafer devices, improves the efficacy of traditional irrigation systems and suction systems such as described above.